The Newsies is a regular feature that sees The Dissolve cheerfully adding to the awards glut by handing out imaginary awards related to the day’s movie news.
New Deppths Of The Day: Johnny Depp may go to prison for ignoring quarantine laws
On the surface, things seem to be going well for Johnny Depp. He’s filming Pirates Of The Caribbean 546: Dead Men Can’t Jump; he’s promoting his latest film, Black Mass; his hand is probably okay now. But an item in today’s Guardian tells a darker tale, a tale of a man and his dogs and his private jet and his flagrant disregard for the law. Depp “landed himself in trouble earlier this month” when he brought his two Yorkshire terriers to Australia on his private jet, failing to declare them and thus breaking the country’s quarantine laws. This weekend, “an Australian senate committee was told that if it goes to court, Depp could receive a sentence of up to 10 years in prison or a maximum fine of AU$340,000 (£172,000). The pilot could also face up to two years behind bars for his role in the situation.” Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, has since left the country with the dogs—named Pistol and Boo, so, there’s that to think about, also—but officials are still referring to the case as “very serious,” which sounds very serious.
Back From Development Hell Of The Day: Johnny Quest, now with more Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez is set to direct Johnny Quest, a live-action adaptation of Johnny Depp’s epic smuggling voyage from America to Australia with his pack of mangy-ass, disease-ridden terriers. The Warner Bros. movie, based on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, has been dormant for a few years, but now, Rodriguez and Terry Rossio (of The Pirates Of The Caribbean movies; the parallels really are endless here, guys) are rewriting the script and kick-starting (but not Kickstarting) the project. For those unfamiliar, Johnny Quest was a 1964 ABC primetime cartoon that centered on the “neat-o adventures of Quest, a boy, who accompanied his father on globe-spanning missions. Also on the missions—which included robots, mummies, secret submarine bases, and secret ray gun bases—were his support team: Hadji, a Calcutta orphan who is his best friend, his pet bulldod Bandit, and the government agent bodyguard Race Bannon.” Also on the missions: Johnny Depp’s rabid, seething dogs.
No, Not That Hulk, The Other Hulk Of The Day: Hulk Hogan, who might be in The Expendables 4
Hulk Hogan, best known for walking through airports, told fans during a Q&A at the Body Pro Expo in England that Sylvester Stallone wants him to play the villain in The Expendables 4. This is, of course, in spite of the fact that The Expendables 3 was by all accounts quite terrible, the cinematic equivalent of bringing your Rage-Virus-infected American dogs on a cross-continental plane ride before setting them loose on Australia’s innocent children. “Was talking on the phone with Sly about doing The Expendables 4,’ ” Hogan said. “We’re trying to figure out a way to maybe turn me into the most evil man in the world. Y’know, Stallone gave me my first break and he’s been a great friend.” He then posed this question to the audience: “Can I still run? Can I still jump?” This was probably meant to be hypothetical, but then Hogan accidentally answered it himself: “Well, not as fast or not as high, but I think Hollywood could find a good stunt man to help me out.”
Indistinguishable Young Women Of The Day: Alicia Vikander and Emma Watson
Ex Machina’s Alicia Vikander and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson, both women with brown hair, would be interchangeable and indistinguishable but for their accents: Vikander is Swedish, while Watson is a snooty wizard. So it follows that Watson will likely replace Vikander in The Circle, the upcoming Dave Eggers adaptation starring Tom Hanks. Vikander has just dropped out of the film to make way for two other, more gigantic films: The next Bourne movie, and Assassin’s Creed, based on a videogame that lets players assume the role of a cold-blooded killer hired to take down the prolific Christian rock band.
What A Lovely Day Of The Day: George Miller wants to rerelease Mad Max: Fury Road in black and white
In the same way that hipsters like to acquire old VHS tapes and churn their own butter and develop their own micronations, filmmakers occasionally like to hearken back to the olden days by making movies in black and white. Though George Miller’s final version of Mad Max: Fury Road was in color, Miller told /Film his preferred version of the film is in black and white. “One thing I’ve noticed is that the default position for everyone is to de-saturate post-apocalyptic movies. There’s only two ways to go, make them black and white—the best version of this movie is black and white, but people reserve that for art movies now. The other version is to really go all-out on the color,” he said. “The usual teal and orange thing? That’s all the colors we had to work with. The desert’s orange and the sky is teal, and we either could de-saturate it, or crank it up, to differentiate the movie. Plus, it can get really tiring watching this dull, de-saturated color, unless you go all the way out and make it black and white.” Miller also told the pub that he’s “demanded a black and white version of Fury Road for the Blu-ray, and that version of the film will feature an option to hear just the isolated score as the only soundtrack.” There will also be a third option to print out the screenplay and stand in front of a blanket draped over a tree branch and act out all of the parts yourself.